boy wonder
by sebastopol
Summary: in which lego dick grayson, jason todd, and tim drake are nightwing, red hood, and red robin respectively, only to come home to damian wayne holding their beloved title of boy wonder, and the man upstairs seems to have decided to destroy them all. [feat. afab nonbinary tim drake, trans boy dick grayson, and an imagining of the story in liveaction]
1. Chapter 1

Tim was well past the age of being able to call herself "Boy Wonder". They all were; it has been over a decade since they had each donned the title and costume for the first time.

Alfred had called her that morning, asking her to please come by; it would make Bruce so happy, and wouldn't it be nice if they were all together as a family again? It would, she supposed, though when they were children they were much closer. They had grown apart somewhat over these past few years, in between their nighttime vigilantism and their own lives.

Dick had been in Jump City for a while before becoming Nightwing and Jason had died only to be brought back to life, and she was...well.

She still missed being Robin. Missed Gotham, as they all undoubtedly did. Being Red Robin wasn't the same as being the Boy Wonder. The latter was a part of her that she couldn't just _erase_. It was an integral part of her that she couldn't tell people about, and that was, perhaps, the worst part of it. So many of her memories came from being Robin, so many parts in her life that made her what she was today. It was cheesy and cliched to say that, she knew, but it was true.

Her brothers had found it easier to let that part of themselves go, but they had given up the Boy Wonder mantle well before she did. They'd had more time to adjust to not being Robin anymore. It had only been, what, two or three years since she'd stopped being Robin? She'd only been seventeen when she gave up the mantle, just about to turn eighteen. When Kon-El altered reality, bringing Jason back to life, it had also cost her being Robin. Jason had taken up being Red Hood, and she had-

Bruce had asked her to live the rest of her teenage years out _normally_ , as Tim rather than Robin. She shouldn't have to live out the rest her childhood as a hero, he'd said, like the former part of her childhood wasn't riddled with memory gaps of her birth parents, with no idea of who they were. Being Robin had given her an _identity_.

Being at Brentwood was-it wasn't enjoyable, to say the least. Despite the fact that it wasn't that far from Gotham - rather close to it, in fact - it still felt like worlds away. Maybe it was the fact that she was being asked to be this normal version of herself like normal for her wasn't being Robin, wasn't being referred to and known as one of Bruce Wayne's children -

Or maybe it was the fact that her biological father was nearby Brentwood, wanting to know her. In all fairness, they had thought each other dead; of course he would want to know the child he had recently found out was alive. But she'd had no interest in it, despite all her wondering who her biological parents were.

...both her biological parents were dead now, though. She can't say that she misses her biological father when she hardly knew him, but it was certainly disappointing that she never did get to know him all that well before his untimely murder by Captain Boomerang.

If living up to Dick and Jason's versions of Robin had been hard, trying to be a normal person was even harder.

* * *

They all arrive at the manor at the same time, some sort of coincidence or maybe Alfred just called them all on the same day, but either way it is an odd sort of feeling to be back in Gotham, back at the manor. Anyone who didn't know them would likely never assume they were siblings - that is, anyone new to Gotham, at least.

Dick runs at Tim and Jason, scoops them up in the tightest hug he can manage. Tim laughs into his shoulder where Jason protests, trying to squirm his way out. It was _freezing_ outside, Gotham being most infamous for its extreme winters if not for its crime rate, so they head in quickly before any part of the former Robins can break off in the cold.

The manor was still, of course, as grand as he remembers it, with perhaps a few more things around; their childhood still exists within these walls, most of it hidden deep underneath the manor - it was a shame, really, that all their identities as Robin were secret.

 _What was your childhood like?_ people ask. He cannot exactly say, _Oh, I fought crime on a nightly basis with Batman!_ Needless to say, their childhoods were...unorthodox. College had been a bit easier; by that time, he was no longer Robin, but old habits were hard to break and he would often find himself _missing_ that life, walking around Gotham like it was still his to protect.

They've all seen the new Robin in the newspapers, some dark haired young boy about fourteen or so. None of them know if this new Robin had even had a predecessor that wasn't Tim. The Joker still hadn't ceased with all his flamboyant, evil plans, being Batman's greatest enemy and all; Dick was surprised the villain hadn't been here when he'd arrived - after all, the Joker was basically his second dad, and Dick was sure he wouldn't want to miss them all being back at the manor.

Despite knowing the fridge was full with just about nothing but lobster thermidor, he opens it again for the umpteenth time as though new food would somehow magically appear this time around. He shut the fridge door, only to be startled by an unfamiliar face behind it.

"Surely you know," they say, "that there is nothing but thermidor?" Their expression is blank of emotion, as was their tone, but everything about them seems matter of fact.

"...who are you?" They hadn't been here when he, Jason, and Tim had arrived...had they? That had only been a few hours before, and Dick was sure he had only seen Alfred and the Batdad so far.

"So he hasn't told you yet," this new person murmurs to themselves, a small strand of hair falling in their face.

"Told us _what_?" Dick says, exasperated with their way of avoiding things.

They look him in the eye, their eyes a stormy, steely grey, so different from his own soft brown. "...that I'm his son."

"Yeah? So am I, though, I mean..." Dick shrugs, a small, nervous laugh escaping him. He pauses when he notices the way this new blue eyed boy is looking at him, like he's just not _getting_ something. "What, you don't mean his _biological_ son-?"

"I do." He says it so bluntly, so matter-of-fact, that Dick doesn't really register it until he's left. There had been a challenge in those grey eyes, daring Dick to question the truth of his words.

He must be the new Robin they've been seeing; that dark haired boy who showed up in the papers no younger than he or Jason or Tim when they had been Robin.

His heart twists a little at the thought of the blunt, blue eyed boy he'd just met as Robin, bearing the Boy Wonder title. It twists at the thought of his padre's _biological son_ being Robin when it has always been a beacon of hope for the orphans - how it had been one even for him. It had been something to hold on then, when he still thought Batman and Bruce Wayne were separate people, when he hadn't come out as a trans boy yet-

The identity of Robin has done and been so many things for him. For Jason and Tim, too. They were a family of orphans, and here came along this new boy who is so young to him, who is not even an orphan, who had a mother somewhere and an actual relation to Bruce-

Dick had never doubted that Batdad considered him to be his son and yet...what about this new Robin, who is related to him in every way?

By the time he's gotten to his room, he's so anxious over whoever this new Robin was that he asks the Batcomputer to tell him everything, if there was anything redeemable about the cold stranger he'd met in the kitchen.

"The role of Robin is currently occupied by Damian Wayne," Batcomputer chirps dutifully, "previously known as Damian al-Ghul; preceded in the role of Robin by Tim Drake..." Hmm, so that was that solved. Dick had noticed how Damian hadn't looked all that much like Bruce, seeming to take after his mother - some woman named Talia, according to 'Puter - and the only things that Damian seemed to take from Bruce were the hair color and the charmingly untamable hair, minus the charm.

Everything else about Damian Wayne was stiff and calculating, the polar opposite of his predecessors. Dick couldn't help but wonder where Damian's mother was, if she was even alive. He wasn't the detective Tim was, or he would have figured that out by now. She'd have had Damian's identity figured out by now, too; among the three of them, Tim was the clever one where Jason was the tough one and he was...the acrobat. The original Robin, if that was anything to take pride in. He had been the start of this role. Granted, he had been twelve and had only picked out the name Robin because he liked the bird, wasn't that funny?

Golly, he was being awfully pessimistic about all this. Damian was a decent Robin, from what he could tell from the newspapers.

Still, for whatever reason, he cannot bring himself to believe this was real.

* * *

Jason's old Robin outfit was still in the Batcave. The only one that was displayed like some sort of awful reminder of his death.

It wasn't like he particularly missed that variant of the Robin outfit - it had _booty shorts_ , for God's sake; he'd narrowly missed having "bottom text" written across it as the consequence of a bet - but it was pretty messed up to have the outfit he literally _died in_ on display.

He thinks of Dick with his Robin outfit, donning the underwear from the Batman costume it used to be. Jason really missed a lot of bullets with this Robin deal. Tim was the one who got lucky with the outfit; somehow she'd managed to snag a pair of actual pants on the thing. Well, skintight leggings, technically, but they _counted_ as pants.

It's a bit odd to think of his death now, how he had been killed in the crossfire of one of Batman and Joker's fights. It seems...it seems like it never happened now, obviously, but it felt like such a far away memory, remembering it through this secondhand sorrow of his family's. He had never been all that close to Tim or Dick, though they both tried to form this close familial bond with him. He had begrudgingly put up with it back then, but he can't help but wonder now if that might have been a mistake.

It wasn't in his nature to be the pure kind of nice that Dick was, nor did he have the strong sense of morality Tim did, having had to survive on his own on Gotham's streets for that first part of his childhood. He's a bit scared to think now that if he hadn't become Robin, he actually might have become some sort of criminal, taken up Gotham's brand of villainy. Under the right circumstances, he might have become one of Batman's enemies instead of-

Instead of his son.

* * *

Damian was never a sentimental person. Over these past four years as Robin, he had been careful not to get too attached to the name and title as his three predecessors so clearly did. It was clear in the way the original had reacted to his being Robin, or the way the second - the most like him in temperament, according to Alfred - was still bitter about his unavenged death and the way he saw the third as his replacement, in the way his immediate predecessor struggled to let go of his own identity as Robin.

He has yet to see the third Robin, who has still not yet emerged from wherever he had disappeared to when he'd arrived with the other two. Damian had his heart set on proving his right to the Boy Wonder mantle by defeating Tim Drake in a fight, to the death if necessary. He was sure that his own skills were superior to Tim Drake's, so defeating him would be an easy feat. Despite Batman's obvious pride that he harbored for them all, Damian held his skills in the utmost superiority to the past Robins.

It is a few days before he meets Tim, longer than he'd have liked. He is surprised, needless to say, to find that the Boy Wonder preceding him is, in fact, a GirlWonder - " _Boy_ Wonder," she would snap at him later, _clearly_ annoyed by the way he called her Girl Wonder so flippantly. Damian doesn't miss the small smile Bruce tries to hide at this. These sorts of things were never ones he bothered to understand, though he found unnecessary conflict even more tiring than trying to understand whatever problem Tim Drake found with being called Girl Wonder, so he allowed the matter to drop (he would find out much later that Tim was not the kind of person to let matters like this drop).

Everything everyone did around here was so _predictable_. It is almost too easy, being Robin, when the plans of Gotham's villains were laid out _for_ them by the villains themselves. (The Joker is especially guilty of this.)

Despite the rest of Gotham's predictability, he found it...difficult to predict his three predecessors. Even his father is more predictable than them, or perhaps Damian is simply being led to believe that Bruce Wayne was predictable. But Dick, Jason, and Tim, on the other hand, steered well clear of him. He had yet to challenge Tim to a fight to prove both their worth as Robin - well, mostly his.

He has not seen the way any of the former Robins fight, never seen them in action, but he has seen the way they all stand tall and proud, some imaginary wind blowing their former cape back forever, seen the way they move so fluidly, seen the way it is so second nature to them, like they were born into the role of Robin. Maybe they were, unlike he was - his mother had sent him here to disrupt his father's work as Batman, he knew, but instead he found that he _wanted_ to be Robin, with a genuinity he didn't know he was capable of.

* * *

The manor still felt so big, and she so small. Tim couldn't help but remember when she had seen the inside of the place for the first time, seen how grand it was. It still is, even after this past decade. Linh - Lucy, really, but they already knew a Lucy, and so this Lucy began going by her middle name - was still here, ever present. It had been three years since Linh had attempted suicide and found herself washed up by the manor instead. Everyone had thought her to be dead, so it simply became easier for Linh to stay in the manor, hidden away from Gotham.

Tim still remembers when they had been a thing for a while, when she had still been Robin and Linh still alive in the government database. They'd split before she'd gone off to Brentwood, of course - herself because of her leaving and Linh for the reason that it had been Tim's Robin she had fallen for rather than Tim herself, and she couldn't subject Tim to that knowing it wasn't Tim she had wanted, not Tim she had-

. . .

...but enough about that.

Returning from trying to be _normal_ , returning from Brentwood, was so easy she might not have believed she had ever lived through that stretch of her life. It wasn't so easy stepping back into the manor, into this old life of luxury she somehow still wasn't used to even after so many years living here. She supposed it was because some part of her subconscious was still used to having so little that luxury like this was something beyond her wildest dreams.

Her brothers weren't all that used to it, either. She stood outside Dick's bedroom door now, reluctant to even knock, to say something about Damian being Robin, though at this point he'd probably already dug up most of what she could've found in minutes.

Damian was aggravating, to say the least. She was not fond of him, not after the way he'd so condescendingly looked at her and called her "Girl Wonder", disregarding everything she had done and been as the Boy Wonder. He'd dropped the matter after she'd snapped at him about it, but she was not the type of person to let matters like that drop so easily. Dick, on the other hand, seemed to have resigned himself to Damian being Robin.

The door that connected hers and Dick's rooms alongside the door that connected hers and Jason's and the one that connected Jason's to Dick's had led them to use Dick's room as a hub of sorts for their activity, a meeting point for the things they wouldn't - _couldn't_ \- go to Bruce for. Damian as Robin was one of them. Dick, kind soul that he was, had never minded much when they wandered in, looking for comfort or a talk or to allay any fears they might have had - Tim especially, when the life she had built as Robin was suddenly dashed to pieces by Bruce asking her to be _normal_. He'd always been this golden big brother for her and Jason; she cannot imagine what it must be doing to him for the role of Robin to be taken by the very boy who was Bruce's only biological son, what it must mean for all of them if this meant that Bruce had chosen his own flesh and blood over them.

She walks in at long last, pausing at the uncharacteristically hardened expression on Dick's face, some twisted version of his normally cheerful disposition.

"Dick...?"

He unfreezes at this, at Tim's familiar voice. Tim noticed the sudden change back to his normally cheerful self, but it felt like a mere echo compared to the full intensity of it.

"...what is it, baby bird?" God, Tim can hear the _exhaustion_ in that one sentence; more than she's heard in Dick's voice in a long time. Of course, Bruce had never let them be Robin when it became evident that they were wearing themselves down with it, but they were no longer Robin and Bruce couldn't exactly tell them to give up their nighttime vigilantism, not when he was the one who had instilled that in them. "Tim?"

Her breath catches in her throat before she can speak, a sudden bout of hesitation, before she can say anything about Damian's mother and grandfather being _supervillains_. They were-they were infinitely more dangerous than any of Gotham's own villains, who paled to cheap imitations compared to Talia and Ra's al-Ghul, more formidable than any of the other villains they had faced outside of Gotham; she's scared to think what might happen to them if Damian exposed all this - the manor, the Batcave, their _identities_ \- to his mother and grandfather, of what might happen to them if Talia and Ra's come after them and one or all of them _dies_ like Jason did, she couldn't live with that if _she was the only one left e_ -

She faintly hears Jason enter, say, "H-what happened to Tim?"

"Jason-! Ah, panic attack, I think; find Batdad or Grandpa, Jason, will you? Hey, baby bird," she hears Dick croon, gently, _gently_ , "shh, you're alright-"

It is the last thing she hears before everything feels like it's been encased in a bubble, muffled and blurred and-

She opens her eyes to Dick and Bruce leaning over her in worry. Damian - the precocious little brat - was in the corner of the Batcave, staring at her from across the room with an intensity she'd only ever seen from Jason.

The bubble around the world had popped, _finally_ , and nothing sounded muffled anymore. Her ears were still ringing, though; beyond that she can hear Dick practically screeching, _"TIM, DON'T DO THAT AGAIN THAT WAS TERRIFYING!"_ and Bruce's quiet, grumbling sort of worry. Jason was nowhere to be found.

(Damian had broken that brief moment of eye contact they'd had; she could almost swear she'd seen the smallest flicker of concern in those sharp grey eyes of his, even from so far away.)

"Sorry," she mumbles against the cotton of Dick's shirt (the trademark Robin red as usual), pressing her face into her brother's shoulder.

"For what?" Bruce raises an eyebrow at her; she can feel his Batman Stare™ even despite the fact she cannot look anyone in the eye right now.

...she doesn't know what she is apologizing for. She doesn't know, _she doesn't know_ -

. . .

. . .

She really doesn't know.

* * *

Dick was worried about Tim, maybe more than he needed to be. Tim was still reeling, he thinks, from having Robin snapped up from under her feet. Reeling, too, from Damian taking up the role of Robin. They were all reeling from that.

He'd resigned himself to it, though, figuring it wasn't something he could change anymore than he was able change Jason or Tim being Robin. The most he could do then was make sure they filled in the role with the proper skill set, make sure they filled in the role of Robin with the same passion he had. It was probably the most he could for Damian now, too.

It might've been hard for Tim to admit, but Damian needed Robin more than any of them ever did - his own mother was a supervillain, and so was his grandfather. This was, perhaps, the only time he'd ever known he'd even _had_ a father, or that Bruce knew he had a biological son.

And yet, somehow, it still _stung_ that it was Damian, of all people, who had taken up-

This was repetitive. His own life was repetitive, in a way, with all the deaths that occurred within it, his parents and Jason being two of them.

Jason was taller than him now. Goodness, the little wing had grown up when he wasn't there to see it and he could never forgive himself for that. (He tries not to think about the little brother who died in that warehouse all those years ago. Jason had come back, but not the little brother he had known.)

* * *

Jason tried not to think about the scrawny little boy who had died in that warehouse all those years ago. He was taller than Dick now, and he had come home ready to lord it over him, but Dick had started crying and hugged him and had apologized through the tears for not being there to see it.

He tried not to think about the little boy who died in that warehouse all those years ago. That little boy hadn't come back to life with him.

Kon-El had brought him back to life but not the boy who died in that warehouse, childishly innocent and idealistic and naive like Dick was as a child.

He had been left to die. He wasn't going to make the same mistakes Batman did then, _wouldn't leave his siblings unavenged like Batman left him-_

* * *

Damian was never a sentimental person. He had not allowed himself to get attached to Robin, nor would he allow himself to get attached to his father's other children like they were his own siblings by blood.

"Computer, tell me of Tim Drake," he ordered, eyes steady, hands clasped behind him.

TIMERRY CASSIAN DRAKE blinked onto the computer's screen. Born to Jack and Janet Drake; preceded in the role of Robin by Jason Peter Todd, succeeded by Damian Wayne; age 20; current superhero identity is Red Robin.

When had she taken up another hero identity? Surely, he or his father would have known if Tim had taken up vigilantism again if she had been in Brentwood, so close to Gotham. Then again, his father hadn't realized that Dick Grayson was in the manor until after a week of his being there.

The photo that the computer had given of Tim was one of when she was Robin, flying across rooftops. The costume in its entirety is different from his own, and from those of her brothers; it was clearly made to include increased protection: an armored tunic, for one, and the gorget. The cape draped differently around her shoulders than it would around the shoulders of a typical female, settling on broad shoulders and a lean, lithe body.

He's seen her old bo staff lying around from her days as Robin; Damian can only assume she had acquired a newer one for the purpose of being Red Robin. She would not be an easy opponent, that was for sure, but she would not be difficult to defeat, not if he was the one to defeat her.

He'd been waiting for this for these past four years.


	2. Chapter 2

Damian found himself littered with bruises and scrapes from fighting Tim Drake.

This fight - this duel to prove that he was the superior Robin, that he had _earned_ the role from his predecessor - had lasted longer than he'd thought it would, and Tim proved to be a more competent fighter than he'd thought. She was an admirable tactician and strategist, well-versed in what were clearly multiple forms of martial arts. If he wasn't so set on defeating her here and now - if he wasn't so damn proud, he thinks later - he might have even admitted it.

Instead, he knocked her clean off the T-Rex skeleton in the Batcave (why Father _had_ a T-Rex skeleton was beyond him), and seeing her topple over brought him _no greater joy_.

* * *

Damian had just knocked her off that godforsaken dinosaur skeleton (Why did Bruce even have that? More importantly, where did he _get_ it?); if she had landed, she might have sprained a bone or two, might have even shattered something, if it wasn't for Bruce passing under and miraculously catching her.

Damian touched down next to them, all smug about his victory over her, this infuriating _smirk_ on his face that is quickly wiped off when he sees Bruce's raised eyebrow and the infamous Batman Stare™.

"Should I even bother to _ask_?"

The face Tim pulls at Damian is less severe than she would have liked it to be; already, a nasty bruise was beginning to form on her face. " _No_ ," she retorted sharply, and oh, if looks could kill, "because _he started the d-_ "

"What are you doing fighting someone six yearsyounger than you?" Bruce cut her off, depositing her on the floor. It is a question she can't give a proper response to, but it was true that Damian had started the whole damn thing. He was _insufferable,_ too self-important for her liking. Of she, Jason, and Dick, she is the only one anywhere close to Damian's fourteen, but even that is a six year age difference.

For a moment, she could have sworn she saw Damian's eyes flicker to the bruise on her cheek, another split second of concern. It was short-lived, though, if it ever happened.

"Tch. _Why_ is unimportant," Damian muttered, petulant child that he was, " _I_ won, anyways."

"And gave me a nasty bruise to show for it," Tim hissed, eyes flashing like light catching on a dangerously sharp blade, all but ready to fight this little brat _all over again-_

Bruce pulls her back by the collar of her shirt with a firm _you need to rest!_ which was surprising given all they did was blatantly not rest. Damian had a look of defiance in his eyes, hard and cold with the unsettling, quiet sort of angry determination.

* * *

It is the day after Tim's panic attack that the world quite literally begins to fall apart around them.

Not that any of them besides Dick and Jason (and perhaps Alfred, too; he was scarily observant that way) noticed at first - Bruce, Damian, and Tim were all down in the Batcave, Alfred was...somewhere, and he and Jason were observing the damage from one of the many hidden cameras around Gotham.

Still, even with the world falling apart, Dick _worried_ about Tim.

...like he hadn't with Jason. Like somehow, by worrying about her, it would make up for all the years Jason was dead and Tim was still young and still Robin. He knew Conner had altered reality, had changed Tim's memories, too, so that she remembered Jason as her brother and not as this unknown dead boy who was her predecessor. Fortunately, her panic attacks were far and few between, but when they occurred, they were bad ones and every time, it was terrifying.

"Hey," Jason pipes up, interrupting his thoughts, "this doesn't look like the work of any of Gotham's criminals, does it?"

"No...not even Joker, and he's the one who's especially prone to damage like this." Dick gestured vaguely to the damage clearly caused by an explosion of some sort - the Joker was rather fond of bombs, after all - and the surrounding damage, caused by what seemed to be the work of Gotham's criminals. Yet it clearly wasn't their doing, especially since they had all been out on patrol these past few days (though Batdad thought it was just him and Damian) and the villains had all been doing what they usually did: the Condiment King trying to steal all the hot dog carts in the city, Joker going after Batman, Harley Quinn wreaking havoc alongside the Joker...

Nothing was any different than how it usually was, if at all, so it was doubly strange that the city suddenly seemed to be crumbling of its own volition. It had reportedly been going on in other places as well, Cloud Cuckoo Land and Bricksburg having been the first two to start falling.

The other Master Builders had been communicating with each other, trying to figure out what was happening, trying to rebuild what they could, but it was hard to keep up with the rate at which the cities were falling, even when they were all back and recovered from that whole Lord Business ordeal over a decade ago.

"You're not still worrying about Tim, are you?" The look Jason gives him cuts right through the facade he's been trying to keep, cuts through the worry and the strife he's been trying to hide.

"...a bit," he settles on.

"More than a bit,"Jason says, half-teasing. He laughed a little at that, the first time Dick has heard Jason laugh genuinely in a long time. He feels so worn these days, feels less and less like that little boy Bruce had adopted by accident all those years ago at the gala. He doesn't know why he's been trying so hard to hang on to that version of him: the small orphan who had only ever wanted to be adopted and had ended up being a hero in his own right instead. So he wouldn't forget who he was once, he supposed. He was still the same, though, at least a little bit. A little older, a little more battle-worn, more physically scarred, perhaps, but the same nonetheless.

He was afraid to forget, he thinks. Afraid to forget how innocent and naive and oblivious he once was to the world, when he still saw Bruce as the greatest orphan ever and Batman as the greatest hero ever. He still- he still looked up to them both, but it is less idolization and more of respect that a hero who was also your adoptive father got. He is afraid to lose all of this, to lose his family again. He still had nightmares sometimes, about his parents falling to their deaths from the high wire. They weren't as bad as they were before when he was younger and the death of his parents was still so raw and new, but still, they are there and relentless.

He cannot imagine what it must be like for Jason, who burned to death in an explosion only to come back to life to find Tim in his place as Robin, or for Tim, who lost her mother, her father, her stepmother, and the role of Robin in so little time.

* * *

Jason still can't help but see Tim as his _replacement_ , even four years after she has already left the role of Robin. It wasn't her he blamed so much as it was Bruce for replacing him without a second thought, or for leaving his death behind like it was _nothing_. He is still bitter about it, still angry that he had missed out on so much because he had died, that Bruce had left his Robin outfit up as some sort of horrible reminder of what happened to him.

Like it wasn't awful enough knowing the man who had taken him in hadn't cared enough to avenge his death.

. . .

He doesn't know what to make of anything anymore.

He's still not used to being alive again; he finds himself forgetting that he is, like he's a zombie or something, like he's not _real_.

It hurts to look at Tim and only be able to see his replacement, to know that her memories have been altered so that she sees him as her brother and not the dead boy who'd come before her as Robin, who she used to _look up to_ when she was still in foster care. He wants so desperately to hate her except he can't, not when she sees him like that. It would be easier, maybe, if he could hate her. Easier to stay away from what used to be his home, his _family_.

...he doesn't know if he should be counting himself lucky to have been brought back to life.

* * *

They used to soar in plain sight over buildings. Tim remembers that much from when Jason was still Robin, when she was still in foster care and thinking nobody wanted her, when she still idolized the Dynamic Duo, before she _was_ one of the Dynamic Duo.

They used to soar in plain sight over buildings, capes trailing behind them like banners, like flags, like a pair of wings and if she believed hard enough it was almost like she could really fly. Her own cape hadn't been glittery like Dick's had been - not on the outside at least; the inside was covered in all the glitter she wanted - but it had been _hers_.

They were more discreet now, more on the ground than flying over rooftops, hiding in the shadows more and more. It's forced she, Dick, and Jason up on the rooftops, ironically enough, but they've all got experience in hiding when they're up that high and that visible. She's missed this life, despite being Red Robin for a few years now since she had gone off to Brentwood. This whole crime-fighting deal was something that wasn't so easy to leave behind.

It had been easier to sneak around and fight crime on her own, back at Brentwood. It was almost laughable, how easy it was. (That much she had learned from the Joker: how to sneak around _Batman_.) It should have made it easier to see Damian's winning punch, in the end.

She had narrowly missed winning that fight with Damian. She had been _so close_ to winning, so close to defeating him.

What did she get from winning...? She didn't know. The fact that Damian didn't like her was all she knew. She didn't like him either, though Dick had resigned himself to Damian's existence and Jason seemed to have focused his energy on disliking _her_.

The bruise from their little _altercation_ has disappeared, mostly, having darkened to this blue-purple color within a few hours. It isn't very visible under her Red Robin mask, fortunately. Jason was somewhere in Crime Alley, and Dick somewhere farther ahead, tailing Batman and Damian. (She refuses to call him Robin. She _refuses_.) It was her tailing them originally, but Dick had made her wait, because the bruise was too recognizable to both Bruce and Damian, and if she wanted to keep her identity as Red Robin secret from _them_ , she'd have to steer well clear of them until the bruise healed.

She had protested, of course, vehemently. Dick had given her that Big Brother™ look, which carried all the authority he could muster. She can hear the sounds of whatever fight is going on off in the distance - Crime Alley, she thinks it is, so that must be Jason. Another one is happening closer to her, though, accompanied by cackling she recognized as the Joker's. She wasn't all that worried about Damian getting hurt, because it was an unspoken rule among Gotham's villains not to harm Robin - _any_ Robin. It was Dick she was worried about, even though she knew he was more than capable of defending himself.

For being the most crime-ridden city in the world, Gotham was actually pretty safe, at least during the daytime. At night was a different story - that was when all the big-time villains came out to play. Most of the daytime crimes were petty ones, nothing that the police couldn't handle under Barbara's command.

Despite Gotham's crumbling - and the rest of the world's too - they are still out here fighting crime. Dick and Jason had mentioned how it wasn't that bad yet, how it could still be written off as normal damage. " _Yet_ ," she had said pointedly, tilting her head to the side.

"Tim?" Dick landed softly near her, touching down on the skylight she'd hidden behind.

"What's Joker up to again?"

"Getting Batdad's attention, as usual." Dick laughed, sounding so much like the brother she had known before they had all gone their separate ways. "Damian doesn't seem to have taken to him like we did, though."

Her mouth twitches its way into a smile, against her better judgement. "Of course not. Damian sees all of Gotham's villains as exactly that."

Dick looks at her curiously, contemplatively. "...as villains or as a threat?"

"Both, I guess. Not like they're much of a threat against the six of us."

"Five," Dick corrected. "Barbara isn't here tonight. Hasn't been for a while. She said she might quit being Batgirl altogether."

The moment of hesitation before she speaks again is evident - _too_ evident. " _When_?"

"A few days ago. She probably decided weeks or months ago, though, for all I know." Dick sighed, folding in on himself. "It's going to be hard without her."

"We'll manage, though." Tim tilted her head back to look up at her brother. "We've managed these past few days without her without even knowing."

Dick's small smile wavered, if only for a moment. His face crumpled briefly before he covered it back up with the bright smile he usually wore.

"Yeah, I guess we will."

* * *

Gotham is still crumbling. It is nothing major yet; nothing to warrant any worry or fear from the city's denizens, not when its villains still ran rampant at night.

He has yet to tell Tim about it, though she has no doubt figured it out already. Damian and Bruce, too, had found out about it the night before, when the city was crumbling beneath their feet as they fought off Gotham's various villains.

Gotham was crumbling away along with the rest of the world, and nobody, not even the Master Builders, knew what to do about it.

It was only going to get worse if the problem was left alone, Dick knew, but the most they could do now was to leave it alone. The damage being done wasn't anything the citizens couldn't handle - it wasn't at a level yet where Master Builders had to swoop in and fix it, unlike in Bricksburg or in Cloud Cuckoo Land or even in the Wild West.

It wasn't at that level yet, but it would be soon, Linh had said. Dick had asked her to figure out how long it might take for Gotham to start breaking down like the other cities had. It was already a miracle that it had started so much later than the other cities - it would be best, Linh told him, to figure out an evacuation plan soon, perhaps over the next few weeks or even days. Gotham's safety was, of course, of the utmost importance. It looked like none of them would be able to return to wherever they had come from - Tim to...college, he thinks, Jason back to Crime Alley, and he to Blüdhaven.

It's funny - out of the three of them, it was Jason who had stayed behind in Gotham. Even though Dick himself was technically living within Gotham's locale, Blüdhaven was still a good half-hour away by driving. He isn't sure where Tim had gone - probably nearby Gotham like he'd done, but she seemed to have disappeared from the face of their world. Come to think of it, he'd been seeing all the news articles and the campaigns running against and for Red Robin, yet he'd never made note of the cities they had been in. How long had he been out of touch with Jason and Tim? _How many times had he not been there for them when they needed it-_?

* * *

Linh knew exactly how long it would take for Gotham to fall victim to its crumbling: a month and a half, at the most; three weeks at the least. It was easy for her to figure out the time frame they would have to work in when she had thrown herself into learning these sorts of things after her failed suicide attempt.

She'd had all the time in the world then, when everyone thought her to be dead and the only people who knew she was alive was everyone who lived in the manor. She didn't think Damian knew she existed yet. She had, after all, only recently returned from traversing the world trying to track down Tim. She was sure that neither Bruce or Alfred would have mentioned her to Damian.

Tim had been hard to find - clearly, the former Robin hadn't wanted to be found, not even by Linh. Sure, Red Robin had been reported about on various news stations, but even then they were all scattered across the world. She doesn't know how Tim had managed it, but Tim had always been the detective, had always been the one clever enough to figure out something like having all the world's news stations running something about her at the same time. Linh had yet to figure her out, even after four years.

Yet, now that they were all back, they were all harder to read than ever. Dick was losing the optimistic view of the world he'd had before; Jason was even more shut off than he had been when Linh had known him; Tim was suffering panic attacks and isolating herself from her family, maybe unintentionally.

She remembered, still, when they had been back at Gotham Academy, when Dick had been so eager to befriend her - though he was eager to befriend anyone and everyone - and Jason hadn't been so cold and angry and bitter and Tim had been...happier, Linh thinks. Tim had still been Robin then, and that is what she seems to be holding on to. Linh knew that much about the reason behind Tim's changes, at least: she could not seem to find it in herself to let go of the identity that being Robin had given to her, or to leave that life behind her.

But it was vastly unimportant now. Their city was falling to its knees, and it wasn't even doing so because of its villains. The city was crumbling, sinking, breaking apart; she had told Dick that if they didn't act soon-well. The consequences went unsaid.

...she couldn't put off telling them that it may be the Man Upstairs taking them apart, brick by brick by brick.

* * *

Damian awoke the next morning to the worried voices of his father and the... _others_. He wrinkles his nose at the thought of having to face even one of his predecessors. It was early still, perhaps seven or eight in the morning; he's surprised that they're up this early - or even up at all.

He trudged his way to their voices, blinking the bleariness from his eyes.

Dick was the only one among the three former Robins who was fully awake, at least somewhat. Tim's hair was in a wild state of bedhead - she clung now to Dick's arm, cheek pressed against his shoulder. Jason had simply fallen face first onto the kitchen island, all slumped over, the sound of his steady breathing so uncharacteristically _gentle_. (Alfred had slipped a small pillow under Jason's head, preventing any neck cricks that might have occurred otherwise.)

Father's and Dick's voices were low, clearly so as to not wake the other two, but even then, Damian could hear that they were talking about the city's current predicament. Another girl was there too, shorter than even Tim, who was a full head shorter than his father.

"Cloud Cuckoo Land fell into the ocean, at least," he hears Father mutter darkly; Dick smiled wanly, a far cry from the normal brightness of his smiles. His hair wasn't so neatly brushed back as it usually was, instead more reflective of the early hour they all must have woken up at, yet that little hair quiff still persisted. It was aggravating; how much more "golden boy" could Richard Grayson _get_?

"Gotham doesn't have much in the way of support anyhow," Damian cut in, making Dick jump. (He could see the dark bags under Dick's eyes, could see the exhaustion in his now slightly stooped posture, could see the way he was trying to stay strong for Tim and Jason and his father. Could it be? Was the original Boy Wonder not so golden as he looked?) "It would fall into pieces right into the water."

Dick made this small, strangled noise that he quickly covered with a cough, nearly throwing Tim off his shoulder. "The water's not so deep as the ocean, though," he managed to squeak out, adjusting his body to Tim's ongoing slumber.

"But the slope is extremely close to the shore..." Damian frowned at the thought of Gotham's topography - it was... _eccentric_ , for the most part, and dangerous if one didn't know their way around it.

"That's just on this side of the city," the other girl pipes up, breaking the brief silence that had fallen. Her expression had settled into a neutral one, eyes flicking upwards to glance at him. (For a moment, he thought he saw a spark of malice in those eyes, directed towards him.) "The other side's got normal oceanic topography."

"Of course it does," Damian muttered, dragging a hand through the mess his hair had become overnight. He doesn't miss the small snicker the girl tries to hide. Dick looked close to simply falling asleep on the kitchen island alongside Jason.

He didn't know Gotham like they did; hadn't lived here for his whole life like they had - it is one of the few advantages they have over him. That and the fact that they know his father better than he did, had been taken in and raised and trained to be Robin by him, unlike Damian himself had. He was still - in many ways, he supposed - learning to be Robin. He had been raised to be an assassin, not a crime-fighter; he had been raised to be ruthless and cruel, not merciful and compassionate.

It's so much simpler to stay that way.

They stayed in from protecting Gotham that night. Dick had asked Jason and Tim to, though he knew Jason wouldn't listen and he had probably gone back to Crime Alley again once he got the chance. It hadn't been Alfred who'd asked Jason to return, after all - it had been Dick.

Dick didn't know what was going on with his brother and sister, nor what was happening with Damian. He didn't want to resent Damian for being Robin, or for being Bruce's biological son. And he didn't, for the most part. He'd be lying if he said he didn't hold either of those things against Damian, at least a little bit.

It was colder tonight, the waters around the manor more choppy than ever. He still had that shark repellent, believe it or not, its contents intact and largely unused. The sounds of Gotham's villains running amok echoed throughout the city. It was a miracle their crime-fighting hadn't woken up the entirety of Gotham, though Gotham's citizens must have been used to it after all these decades.

The wind wasn't particularly strong tonight; a faint, cool breeze that wasn't exactly typical for Gotham but not unheard of. It was strong enough to sting his eyes if not for his glasses. Recently, he had taken to wearing contacts in Blüdhaven, simply for convenience - it certainly wouldn't do for his glasses to break there, especially since the city was significantly more dangerous than Gotham. Besides, he was rather fond of his glasses, though he had changed pairs over the years. They carried so many memories of his childhood.

He can hear Gotham's crumbling all around, echoes of falling rocks and bricks into the water beneath the city. How long would it be until the manor - his _home_ \- would start falling, too? He hoped they could figure out what was happening before that ever happened. But that's probably what the other Master Builders thought, too, before their cities started falling apart.

Linh had mentioned this morning that it seemed the Man Upstairs had a hand in this, like they were all being _punished_ for something. He's scared, to say the least - _terrified_ , in fact.

He doesn't know what to do anymore.

He had been conflicted over staying in Blüdhaven or going back to Gotham; Blüdhaven was, after all, much more dangerous than Gotham in terms of crime, but he was Tim and Jason's brotherfirst. He still felt a little guilty about leaving Blüdhaven to fend for itself, though he knew that its denizens were tough as nails and while they certainly weren't crime-fighting vigilantes, they could definitely beat up the city's villains if they tried.

Blüdhaven was visible on the horizon if you knew where it was, and it almost looked like it was a part of Gotham. The only thing distinguishing it from Gotham, really, was the slightly different colored fog that settled over the city and the way its fog settled, floating upwards like curlicues around the buildings. Tim's stepmother was there, too, in one of the clinics after Jack Drake had been killed by Captain Boomerang. He pitied Dana and Tim both for Jack's death; he knew that Tim had grown rather close with her stepmother and now now she had lost the closest person she'd had to a mother unless he counted Barbara.

It's funny - without all the tragedy that had happened within it, without all the crime or the thick fog that permeated just about every corner of the city, Gotham could have been beautiful.


	3. Chapter 3

Linh wasn't a hero - that much was obvious. She wasn't a hero the way Bruce and Dick and Tim are, and Jason's role as Red Hood was...debatable.

She has been behind the scenes, mostly. But for these past four years she had been tracking down Tim, unable to pin Red Robin down and unable to figure out where in the world Tim Drake had disappeared to; it was like some cruel game of hidden object. Lucky for her that Alfred had gotten Tim home. Gotten Dick home, too, who'd gotten Jason home.

Tim, at least, was actually asleep tonight, head on Linh's shoulder. It was strange to see her sleeping for once. It might have been obvious to anyone, but sleep changed Tim's face almost entirely, and to see her so calm was unsettling. To see Tim out of the Red Robin costume was unsettling, too; Linh was too used to seeing her in it.

For a moment, she could almost believe that Tim was normal, for lack of a better word. Seeing her as Tim Drake and not Red Robin...the person Linh hadn't fallen for back then. She says falls for, but that isn't really accurate. They had something akin to a friendship then, though she had met Tim as Robin and hadn't made the connection until much later.

She had discovered Dick and Jason's identities as Nightwing and Red Hood, too, and they had assumed she would keep their secrets up until she had been asked to speak at some sort of event and she had called Gotham a city of secrets - the city was shrouded in them, in fact. Shrouded in shadows and secrets and she had nearly revealed their identities as Gotham's vigilantes to just about the entire city. She hadn't, of course, and she wouldn't dream of it now, but the thought had occurred to her then that she could easily reveal the identities of Gotham's venerated heroes.

It didn't haunt her all that much, but still, Linh felt a little guilty for even having thought about it. She hadn't known then how much of their childhood was made up of this nighttime vigilantism, what it was to them. They wouldn't - _couldn't_ \- leave that life behind them. It was all they knew - all they were, in a lot of ways. She knew what it was to Tim, at least, from the emails Tim had sent her during her time in Brentwood; some form of identity that they didn't have before Bruce had taken them in.

But what would Linh know of identity? She was a dead girl walking.

* * *

Crime Alley being Red Hood territory was a fact most everyone in Gotham knew. Anyone with good sense knew not to head over to Crime Alley anyhow, unless they themselves were a criminal who knew their way around.

Jason wasn't a criminal, by any means, but Crime Alley was his. He was an orphan on this street, had tried to steal the Batmobile's tires here-

...even the streets where he spent his childhood weren't free from the memories of anything regarding his old life. It wasn't like his memories of his childhood were particularly happy, nor was he nostalgic for them. He had simply been trying to survive then, and he supposed that's what he was doing now.

He hadn't wanted to go back to the manor. It was Dick who had convinced him to go back. There was no love lost between Jason and the Bats of Gotham, but still, _still_ -couldn't they put that aside? It was less that Dick had convinced him to go back and more that he had made himself go with some odd, flawed logic of his: _don'tgo they don't want you there; gogogo and you can kick bruce's ass for replacing you with tim gogogogo_

Funny. None of them were really okay after their respective stints as Robin, were they?

He can still see the manor from here, and the sprawling buildings that made up Wayne Enterprises from the rooftops. He just couldn't stay away from rooftops. He doesn't know if Tim remembered him as Robin; only knew that Tim's memories were changed so that she remembered him as her brother. Except he...wasn't. Not really, anyways, not the way she thought. They hadn't grown up together the way she believed them to have done. No, that was Tim and Dick who'd grown up as siblings, who had a closer relationship than he'd ever had with either of them.

It wasn't in his nature to be kind, or to worry. Yet the latter was coming to him more often - he worried about what might happen to Gotham; worried about what was happening with Tim what with her panic attack the other day; worried about what might happen to him now that Bruce didn't seem to have any use for him anymore.

He'd faded away into the background, and in the process he had become this abandoned memory, covered in cobwebs in the back of their minds.

...there was no love lost between Jason Todd and the Bats of Gotham. He had a feeling he might regret putting that aside later on.

* * *

It wasn't in Damian's nature to be kind. Everything was simple to him, all black and white rather than the rose-colored lenses the rest of the world preferred.

It had been a week and a half since Gotham had started to crumble and already, the small damages to the city were becoming more evident. It wouldn't be long until it would be too much for any of them to fix, even with his father, Dick, Tim, and himself being Master Builders.

But this was his city now, too. He didn't let himself forget that, lest he did and was drawn back to his mother.

It was not that he felt any sort of sympathy towards the city, nor did he feel obligated to protect it, but that was his duty now, he supposed. It was part of what entailed being Robin. He was not obligated to be Robin, either, by any means, but that was...it was not a part of him the way it seemed to be with Dick and Jason and Tim. He had defeated Tim and yet he still didn't feel like he had proved his right to the role - perhaps it was the fact that Tim still seemed to have a bone to pick with him, didn't seem to accept her clear defeat.

Or perhaps-maybe it was that Robin was never his to begin with. It was a skin that didn't quite fit; one that was much more than a simple role to Dick, Tim, and Jason. Or maybe that was it - the role of Robin was never anything more than a role to him, whereas with the others it was almost like the essence of their being. It was the kickoff point for their own hero identities, he supposed. Hell, Tim had even named herself _Red_ Robin, had kept the red and black color scheme that her own Robin costume had taken on at one point. He wondered about that ever since he saw it among the photos the Batcomputer had of his predecessors, but he cannot bring himself to ask her.

Gotham was crumbling. Gotham was everything to his father. Damian knew that much about him, out of the few personal things he'd learned of his father in the four years he had been here. Gotham was _everything_ to his father, next to Dick and Tim and Jason, his predecessors who had drifted so far away from the manor they once called their home.

* * *

It had been two weeks since Gotham had started crumbling. The night sky was somehow even darker than before tonight, even though it was getting closer to sunrise. It should've made for easier hiding, what with his own costume being mostly black, but this darkness was...it felt malicious. Maybe Dick should have expected that, especially with what was happening to Gotham.

...Gotham was _everything_ to Bruce, particularly after... well, his own orphaning.

They had managed to keep it under control for the most part, but how long until the city would become truly irreparable? Linh had said three weeks at the minimum, a month and a half at the most. They didn't _have_ a month and a half to wait for Gotham to fall, for their home city to sink into the surrounding waters, for their world as they knew it to go out one scream at a time.

From the rooftop, he can see Tim a little bit ahead, trailing Bruce and Damian. Jason was back in Crime Alley as usual, and Dick...

He had situated himself on one of the Joker's old hideouts; one that the Joker had long since stopped using. It was from his own days as Robin, he knew, so neither Bruce nor Damian would think to look there for anything regarding Batman's long-time enemy. Or Damian wouldn't at least. Bruce could tend to be a little paranoid about Gotham's villains, and Dick wouldn't put it past him to check on every villain hideout from time to time regardless of whether it was still used.

...not this one, though. It was the warehouse where Jason had died. None of them had returned here since then. Tim, of course, didn't know, at least to his knowledge. If she did, she hadn't mentioned it. He almost wanted her to, despite the old memories it would bring up.

The ground shakes, throwing him off the roof - fortunately, his reflexes were fast enough for him to catch hold of the street lamp nearby before he could fall to the ground. It would have been a nasty fall, though with his training he could have easily landed without breaking anything. Dick waited a beat before letting himself drop from the street lamp, wondering if it had simply been one of Gotham's many villains or if it had been Gotham's falling that had caused the mini earthquake.

Tim showed up a few moments later, a look of worry on her face. He doesn't miss the way her eyes flicker over to the warehouse, her expression going still and hardened for a brief second before being shunted aside by worry again. She knew, then, about Jason. "Dick," she says softly, the most she's sounded like a child in all the years they've been siblings. She sounded almost scared, and why wouldn't she be? He certainly was.

"It's getting late, baby bird," he murmured, watching the sun begin to peek hesitantly over the horizon. His eyes have unfocused for a bit, everything going slightly blurry. "...we should head back."

"I _guess_." Tim sounded almost irritated. She would, what with Gotham and its crime and crumbling, and her own sense of morality. She never could leave Gotham behind in its times of need.

And Gotham needed them now more than ever.


End file.
